The Wolf Master/Chapter 8

EVERAL riders, accompanied by a score of men-at-arms and link bearers, were entering the street where Nada's house stood, driving some captives with arms bound before them. Hastening his pace, Kirdy drew closer and recognized the bearded Tatikof among the horsemen.

He passed behind the cavalcade, skirted the edge of the square to the mouth of an alley that led to Nada's stables. Then he ran as if a thousand fiends were at his heels. In the snow the footing was bad, and more than one log or wagon wheel made him plunge before he came out at the sheds and saw that they were empty. Nada's sleigh, too, was not to be seen.

A half-squad of Swedish halberdiers were standing talking by the gate-posts at the street end, evidently waiting for Tatikof and the company. Kirdy leaped to the rear steps of the house, and pushed at the door. It was fastened—barred by the feel of it. He thrust his fist through the tallow paper of the nearest window and called softly.

Karai's delighted bark answered him.

He was half through the window when a figure appeared out of the darkness and he recognized Toghrul's broad face.

“The khanum must leave the house by this way,” he said quickly. “The Muscovites come for no good. Where are the horses?”

“Allah!” grunted the tribesmen. “I saw the warriors with long spears, and I sent Karabek with the five horses and the sleigh away at once.”

“To the khanum? Where is she?”

“I do not know. Karabek says she is buying clothes at the Jews' bazaar. He will tell her of the coming of the Muscovites when he finds her—”

A warning hiss from the old man made Kirdy aware of footsteps approaching the side of the house, and he hauled himself through the window without waiting to see who they might be. They proved to be the halberdiers, with one of the boyare and a lantern. And they stationed themselves where they could watch both the house and the sheds.

“How many are with thee, Toghrul?”

“One, and the dog.”

“Fool! The way was open to flee!”

“Nay, the house is in my charge. What do I know of these Urusses? Go thou and talk with them, for they beat at the door.”

There was no escape by the rear now, and Kirdy saw that some men with firelocks and lighted matches were outside the only other window on the lower floor. The openings above were no more than slits, to let in light and air. The log houses of Moscow had been built to keep out thieves and the cold.

Listening at the front door, he made out Tatikof's deep voice.

“Within there! I bear an order from the council. The lady Nada must go with me. Open!”

“The forehead to you, great Lord! What seek you of Nada?”

“An order is to be obeyed. Open!”

“She is not here.”

A moment of silence, and then Tatikof laughed.

“She was seen to go in, and only a Cossack has come out since. What man are you?”

Kirdy did not answer at once. Nada had no Cossack among her servants; Tatikof's spies might have penetrated his disguise—but surely the servitors had been in and out since he left.

“Nichevo—no matter!” he responded cheerfully. “I have no quarrel with you, Tatikof, nor you with me, yet I swear to you one thing: If your men break into this house many will go to bed in their graves.”

“And we will pull you out by the hair!” the boyarin roared.

“Once you were whipped, but now you want a taste of the sword.”

An ax thudded into the stout logs of the door, and Kirdy heard the Muscovite cursing steadily. He thought no more of explanations, because he believed that Tatikof had come to seize Nada, in the general looting. The boyarin did not look like a man who would forgive a lash of the whip.

It was true that Kirdy could have opened the door and allowed the house to be searched. But he knew that he could give no good account of himself and Tatikof would torture the tribesmen to find out where the girl had gone.

“The Urusses are angry,” Toghrul observed at his elbow.

“Ay—blood is to be shed. Have ye bows? Arrows? Then go with thy comrade to the upper openings. Send the first shaft at the bearded mirza with the steel hat. In a little, come down and watch the window at the side.”

The house was in utter darkness, and Kirdy placed himself in the dining-hall where he could listen to all that went on. Karai stalked from front to rear, his eyes glowing yellow. In a moment a bow snapped, then another. A man cried out. Muskets roared, but still the sharp snap of the bow strings was to be heard.

“Down with the torches!” Tatikof's deep voice ordered.

Kirdy knew that the lights were being quenched in the snow—knew too that the moon was over the house tops and Toghrul had eyes like a cat. The firelocks barked at the house, but the thick walls stopped the bullets, and the Muscovites must have found the arrows too much for them because the axes ceased work and silence fell. Presently the two warriors emerged out of blackness.

“O Kazak,” Toghrul proclaimed moodily, “the bearded chieftain wears too much iron. We hurt him but did not slay. Three are down, and the other Urusses be very angry.”

“They are at the back.”

The axes began anew on the lighter door, and Kirdy posted the other servitor at the side window, while he sought out logs from the hearth to prop up the rear door. Toghrul experimented with his arrows at the near-by window, and discovered that he could do little damage, while the bullets from the pistols of the Muscovites drew blood from him.

“The Urusses will not enter by the windows,” Kirdy said to him. “The door will not stand for long. It is better to run out than to be hunted from room to room. Go thou and count how many are at the front.”

He went himself and lifted down two of the three bars at the street door, and ran back when he heard boards splintering on the stable side. It seemed to him that the greater part of the assailants were at this point where no arrows could reach them. From the window he could make out a mass of forms in the haze of moonlight—Tatikof, his long sword drawn, urging them on.

Then he felt Karai stiffen against his leg. A wolf howled faintly, not far away. Again the sound drifted through the open window, nearer. Then the door began to fly apart.

Footsteps pattered over the floor behind him, and he turned with bare saber outflung. Toghrul panted at him.

“Down the street the khanum comes. She cried out to me. Come now, Kazak!”

Together they leaped through the hall, calling to the other man to follow, and Karai, wild with excitement, jumped upon the door when Kirdy threw off the last bar. They heard the boots of the Muscovites thudding behind them.

“Nent-en!” Kirdy cried. “Follow!”

He kicked the door back and ran down the steps that Karai leaped without effort. Several halberdiers, leaning on their long weapons, started up, and two horsemen gathered up their reins. Kirdy knocked down the first spear thrust at him, jumped aside from a second, cutting the man deep in the shoulder as he did so.

Wrenching his blade clear, he parried a slash from one of the mounted boyare—a heavy man, too clumsy to wheel his horse for a second cut. He saw Karai leap silently at a third Muscovite—heard the fellow scream, and a pistol roar.

Toghrul was before him now, speeding like a shadow through the gate posts. Down the street in a smother of snow the light sleigh of Nada was coming, a rider on one of the three black horses holding in the others. This, Kirdy thought, must be Karabek, and he found Nada. It was brave of the girl to come back for Toghrul.

But he could not see Nada in the sleigh. Standing up, waving at him, was a young Cossack in a long black coat and a glittering girdle. Gloved, booted and armed, the Cossack might have ridden thus out of the Siech, the mother of warriors. Behind the sleigh, their reins caught in one of the youth's hands, Kirdy's two ponies reared and plunged, frightened by the clash of steel and roar of firelocks.

The sleigh came abreast the gate as Kirdy ran up, and the strange Cossack laughed at him. By that laugh he knew Nada, though her long gleaming hair was hidden under the kalpak and the upturned collar of her coat.

“Come,” she cried, drawing back to make room for him. A second the sleigh halted, and Toghrul scrambled to the back of one of the ponies, jerking the rein free as he did so. A bullet whistled past Kirdy's head, and over his shoulder he saw Tatikof whipping through the gate, his feet feeling for the stirrups that he had failed to grip when he leaped into the saddle.

Kirdy acted almost without thought. He turned on his heel, ran at the Muscovite's big stallion, while Tatikof snatched at the sword on his far side. He did not draw the sword.

The flat of Kirdy's saber smote him across the eyes—his leg was gripped by a powerful arm, and he was off-balance, half dazed by the blow. Tatikof fell on his back beside the stallion, and Kirdy, who had caught the saddle-horn, leaped up, finding the stirrups before he gripped the rein.

Then he wheeled the powerful charger against the boyarin who had first fired at him, and who had followed Tatikof through the gate. Two blades flashed and clanged in the moonlight—the shoulder of the black stallion took the flank of the other horse, and the boyarin reeled, groaning.

Calling off the raging Karai, the young warrior wheeled the stallion again, gripped firm with knees and rein, and raced beside the sleigh.

“Nay, come with me, Nada! I go to the river gate.”

He saw some of the men-at-arms run out, and a bullet or two whistled past without harm. The other servant must have gone down at the door because he was not to be seen. Nada clapped her gloved hands and sank down on the seat.

“With the flat of the blade!” she cried gleefully. “In his beard Tatikof took it, and he went down like—like a speared boar. It was good to see!”

The rider of the off-horse whipped on his three steeds, the bells of the arched collars chimed faster and faster. They began to gallop, and then to race through the silent streets, as leaves whirl before the breath of the storm.

“It was so,” the men of the guard at the river gate reported to their captain, Margeret, the Frenchman the next morning. “No vodka had been given us. But we saw them—three horses black as the pit, and the Cathayan standing up in his stirrups, with his hat gone and his eyes gleaming, and a Cossack in the sleigh singing like one of the angels from Heaven, and a wolf following them. It was so!”

No one had challenged them.

HROUGHOUT Mother Moscow the tale grew and passed from lip to lip. It was whispered at first and then said openly that Dmitri who had been Tsar had escaped the weapons of the nobles.

Warriors who had gone into the Kremyl remembered that a man had been seen to jump from the lower windows of the Terem into the courtyard. A groom of the imperial stables repeated that three Turkish horses had been saddled by order of the Tsar and held in readiness. No one knew what had become of the horses—though the groom was put to the torture.

Then there came a rumor from Kolumna, the nearest town in the east, that Dmitri had been seen there the night of his downfall.

The elder princes of the council debated, and gave out that this must be a lie. The body that had lain in the public square during these three days of bloodshed was solemnly burned, and the ashes fired from the mouth of a cannon. Tatikof was sent with a hundred riders to Kolumna, and there peasants pointed out the keeper of the kortchma, the road tavern, as the one who had spoken with the false Dmitri.

“Bring him to me,” the great boyarin said, and added sternly, “The traitor is dead, so you could not have seen him.”

The tavern-keeper came, fear-ridden, and told his tale. In that evening four travelers had drawn up at his dram-shop. They were escorting a sledge. They had loosed the girths of their horses but had not unsaddled. This was at milking time. During the night they played at chess, and did not get drunk or go to sleep.

Along in the cold hours—so said the innkeeper—other horses had galloped up. These were dobra koniaka—fine horses. From one, his great Mightiness the Tsar had dismounted, and called for veal and white wine. He had been served, while the first four riders were harnessing the ponies to the sledge; evidently they had been waiting for the coming of his Serene Mightiness. They all talked together and then the Tsar called for parchment and a goose quill and ink.

The others—fine young gentlemen—had remonstrated with him. They seemed to be impatient to get on. But the Tsar laughed and wrote some words on the parchment, folded it and directed that it be kept until called for—

“By whom?” demanded Tatikof.

“By the serene, great elder princes or by Michael Tatikof, so it please ye.”

The agent of the boyare started and frowned, and frowned still more when the master of the kortchma hastened to produce the letter as evidence of his honesty.

“A hundred devils!” cried Tatikof, who was able to read it. “Has any one seen this?”

“Aye, your nobility! A batko, a priest it were. He read it to the travelers who came after the illustrious prince.”

“May dogs tear you! Why was it read to others?”

“Because, when I told them the tale they said I lied. I showed them the letter, and still they said I lied, because none could read. So they summoned the priest from the church and he came and read it aloud, and then they knew I was telling the truth. There was no harm?”

“Harm!” Tatikof's red face grew darker. “Who were these people that had the letter read?”

The worthy taverner scratched his head, and began to bow, because fear was growing upon him.

“Eh, they were fine folk. They were two young princes from over the border, only God knows where. One had long eyes like a girl, and a gold girdle—”

“And a dog?”

“Oh, aye, a borzoi it were, like a wolf.”

“Dolt! It was a girl, dressed as a Cossack, and a Cathayan.”

The purple scar on the forehead of the boyarin flamed as he thought of Nada and Kirdy.

“What way did they go?”

“May it please your nobility, they bought meat and wine and forage for the horses and departed along the snow road, yesterday morning, eastward.”

“Have any others seen this paper?”

“Not a soul! Only listen, I swear—”

The master of the tavern fell on his knees, and his mouth opened in dull horror. He had seen Tatikof draw and prime a pistol. The boyarin stepped forward and lowered the muzzle quickly, and the weapon roared in the man's ear.

“ take him!” Tatikof muttered, when his companions ran up at the shot, “I had not thought there were brains in his skull.”

A second time he read the missive, though it was short:

It was signed simply Dmitri Ivanovitch—Dmitri, Son of Ivan.

And before he left Kolumna, Tatikof was careful to see that the priest who had been unfortunate enough to set eyes on this letter disappeared from human sight. This accomplished the boyare hastened on, eastward, to the frontier.

From time to time they heard of the sledge and the seven riders led by the daring impostor, and once they halted where the fugitives had camped. From this point on, there was only the one road, leading to the Volga.

But they never saw the Volga. They approached near enough to see the smoke of a burning frontier post, and to pick up several fugitives who told them the Tatar tribes across the Volga had risen only a few days before. Muscovite officials along the frontier had been slain, and isolated garrisons massacred.

Clouds of fur-clad Nogai Tatars were visible on the sky-line, restless and merciless as hungering eagles. By night, farms burned like torches along the river. Further pursuit of the false Dmitri was not to be thought of, when fire and sword gutted the border.

Bewildered, encumbered by the fleeing, driven by fear of the Tatar arrows, the boyare reined back to Kolumna, and it was weeks before Nogai prisoners were brought in by a patrol of Muscovite cavalry. The elder princes put the captives to the torture at once.

The Nogais swore that Dmitri himself had appeared among them and had shown them a golden apple and an imperial baton set with jewels. Surely he had been the great Khaghan, the Nogais said! He had summoned them to arms, they who lived by the sword and-desired nothing more than raiding. For the rest, they knew nothing.

The captives were put on stakes and left to wriggle away their lives, and the council of the nobles met in solemn session. There was no longer the slightest doubt that the false Dmitri lived, and had taken with him many of the crown jewels.

He had foreseen the conspiracy against him—and had fled before the boyare could seize him. He had slain the unfortunate Bouthinski in his own bed and had leaped from the window of the sleeping chamber. On fast horses, with his intimate followers, he had raced on to where the sledge with his plunder and stores awaited him.

Had he intended the Muscovites to believe him dead, or had he tricked them daringly only to gain a few days' start? They did not know.

This strange being had valued a jest more than his own head, because he had made a last gesture of defiance, at Kolumna—the letter to the boyare. And yet—these gray-haired princes cherished grave doubts—was not this letter a new scheme? The career of the false Tsar had not ended. He had wealth, followers and allies of a sort among the tribes. What new evil would he bring forth, to add blood to that already shed?

“As for Gregory Otrèpiev” Tatikof counseled them—the impostor's true name was known by now—“we can not slay him. He, who has blasphemed against God, will fall by the hand of the Almighty. Yet the rumors that he lives must be answered. Already factions are forming against us, and soon brother may draw weapon against brother. Great seigneurs, let us say to the world that this Otrèpiev was a fiend. Though we slew his body he has reappeared as a spirit.”

And Monsieur Bertrand, who was preparing to leave Moscow and its savages, coined one of his bons mots upon hearing this:

“If ever a fiend,” he pronounced, “deserved to be immortal, Otrèpiev, the False Dmitri, is he.”

More than once Tatikof pondered the fate of Nada and the strange Cathayan, but they had disappeared as if the steppe had swallowed them with their horses and wolfhound.